The urbanization of Africa offers great hope for hundreds of millions of people -- if the infrastructure can keep up. And technology holds huge promise to make building that infrastructure faster and more efficient.
The 955 million people in Africa -- the world's second most populous continent after Asia -- are urbanizing more rapidly than residents of any other region. While more than half Africa's population lives below the poverty line, an estimated 35% have entered the middle class according to University of Texas Professor Vijay Mahajan, author of the book, Africa Rising.
Today there are 37 cities on the African continent with more than one million people. An estimated 41% of the people in Africa live in cities and, by 2020 more than half will, according to estimates done for the United Nations. Those people are moving to the continent's cities because they expect more security and better opportunities than they have in rural villages and farms. But often they find that cities aren't prepared to provide basic needs like clean water and fuel for cooking.
Establishing an infrastructure that will allow newly arrived settlers to thrive and become more productive is a key responsibility for the leaders of those cities and nations.
While infrastructure in most African cities is adversely inadequate, public and private sector leaders have an opportunity to build basic water systems, electricity grids and traffic control systems that will be much more efficient and less energy intensive than the aged infrastructure in developed parts of the world. Technology such as electronic sensors and controls would permit variable pricing for power and finely-tuned measures of water consumption. Smart transit systems could manage traffic far more efficiently than the massive road and parking-lot systems required by vehicles in the U.S., for example.
And Africa is already moving rapidly in one key infrastructure area: communications.
Groupe Speciale Mobile Association (GSMA) -- which represents the interests of the global communication industry -- says wireless companies will invest $50 billion in sub-Saharan Africa over the next five years. A GSMA and Deloitte study estimates that an increase of 10% in mobile penetration -- the number of people who have mobile coverage and are directly connected to the mobile system -- can increase the annual GDP growth rate up to 1.2% in a developing country.
The wireless communications revolution is coming at a turning point in Africa's transition to urban life and a modern economic system. By bypassing the need to build extensive physical infrastructure, wireless telecommunications promise the fastest payback and quickest route to improved productivity of any technology. Cellular networks and eventually wireless broadband promise communications, information, education and finance connectivity that bypass costly physical connections.
